A fuel storage and delivery system typically includes a fuel tank and a carburetor that are adapted for use in small, internal combustion engine-powered apparatuses. These apparatuses comprise a large consumer market of popular lawn, garden, and marine products, which include hand-held equipment such as hedge trimmers, grass trimmers, and chainsaws and ground-supported equipment such as snow-blowers, generators, water pumps, power washers, sprayers, garden tractors, rototillers, and lawnmowers and marine equipment like inboard and outboard motors and auxiliary generators. In recent years, such products have been improved to reduce engine exhaust emissions, but now emphasis is being placed on improving these products to reduce non-exhaust emissions of volatile fuels and fuel vapors such as gasoline.
Volatile fuel emissions generally include hot soak losses, running losses, and diurnal losses. Hot soak and diurnal losses result from emission of liquid or vaporous fuel and include permeation losses and evaporative losses. Permeation losses occur when fuel vapor permeates through gaskets, fuel lines, or the fuel tank, and such losses are often abated by materials-oriented solutions such as integrating vapor barrier layers within fuel lines and fuel tanks. Evaporative losses occur when liquid fuel evaporates into hydrocarbon vapor and escapes into the atmosphere. Evaporation of liquid fuel into fuel vapor is usually due to volatility of the fuel, vibration of the fuel tank and sloshing of the fuel therein, and temperature fluctuations of the fuel. Evaporative losses most often occur 1) when fuel vapors in a fuel tank are vented to the atmosphere, and 2) when fuel vapors in a carburetor are vented or otherwise escape to the atmosphere.
Fuel vapors are often vented from a fuel tank to the atmosphere to avoid build-up of positive pressure in the fuel tank. Hand-held equipment often uses diaphragm carburetors, which have spring-biased inlet valves that provide automatic shutoff against such positive tank pressures and, thus, do not require outward venting of the fuel tank. But ground-supported equipment typically uses float-bowl carburetors, which become flooded under such positive tank pressures. When an engine with a float-bowl carburetor is operating, fuel flows out of the fuel tank, and the tank vent allows make-up air to enter the tank to replace the fuel and thereby prevent a negative pressure condition therein. When the engine is not operating, however, fuel vapors may be permitted to vent out to the atmosphere from within the fuel tank to limit tank pressure and avoid carburetor flooding.
Fuel tank vapors are typically recovered using a fuel vapor recovery system. Such systems may include a carbon canister having activated charcoal therein that receives fuel vapors through a valve assembly mounted on the fuel tank and that communicates with an intake manifold of the engine. During engine operation, negative pressure in the intake manifold draws fuel vapor out of the carbon canister. The valve assembly usually has a valve that is responsive to the level of liquid fuel in the fuel tank that enables the valve to stay open at a sufficiently low liquid level to permit fuel vapors to flow freely from the tank into the carbon canister. When filling the tank, as the liquid fuel level rises to approach a desired maximum level of fuel, a float is raised to close the valve to prevent liquid fuel from flowing through the valve and into the vapor-receiving canister. While such a system works well, the added cost of the carbon canister and float valve is prohibitive in many applications.
In addition to fuel tank vapor emissions, fuel vapors also tend to escape from a carburetor, particularly when the carburetor temperature increases due to heat soak back from a hot engine following engine shut down and/or when the associated equipment is stored for an extended period of time in an enclosure during warm weather. To illustrate, when a piece of engine-powered equipment is shut down after running at normal operating temperatures, heat continues to transfer from a hot cylinder head of the engine through an intake manifold to the carburetor. Moreover, the equipment may be placed in a storage enclosure with limited or no ventilation, wherein the temperature may fluctuate over a twenty-four hour period from a daytime high exceeding 160 degrees Fahrenheit to a nighttime low of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Gasoline fuel evaporates over a wide temperature range with significant evaporation starting at around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with approximately thirty percent by volume evaporating over a temperature increase to 160 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period, and with about ninety plus percent by volume evaporating over an increase to 350 degrees Fahrenheit over a 24 hour period. In any case, the temperature of the liquid fuel within the carburetor increases dramatically, thereby vaporizing some of the liquid fuel into fuel vapor.
Fuel escapes from some carburetors more readily than others. Hand-held equipment typically includes two-stroke engines having diaphragm carburetors, which tend to yield relatively low evaporative emissions. Unfortunately, however, diaphragm carburetors are not practical for all engine applications because they tend to have limited fuel metering capabilities, thereby leading to operational instability with certain types of engines. Precision fuel metering is generally not required in engines equipped with diaphragm carburetors, because such engines are usually operated in only two throttle settings—idle or wide-open-throttle (WOT)—such as in chainsaw or grass trimmer applications. In contrast, ground-supported equipment typically have engines with float-bowl carburetors that usually have relatively higher fuel metering capabilities to accommodate infinitely variable throttle settings between idle and WOT, but tend to yield relatively higher evaporative emissions for several reasons.
First, the volume of fuel contained in a float bowl of a given float bowl carburetor is usually several times greater than that contained in a metering chamber of a diaphragm carburetor. Commensurately, the total volume of liquid fuel that may be depleted from a float bowl carburetor will be several times greater than that from a diaphragm carburetor.
Second, diaphragm carburetors are not continuously supplied with fuel from the fuel tank when the engine is not operating. In this case, fuel may completely evaporate from within the diaphragm carburetor, but is not continuously replenished with fuel from the fuel tank. This is because a typical diaphragm carburetor has an inlet needle valve that is strongly biased closed to prevent entry of such fuel. The typical float bowl carburetor, however, is continuously supplied with additional liquid fuel from which additional evaporation takes place. This is because a typical float-bowl carburetor has an inlet needle valve that is normally biased open unless the float bowl is filled with liquid fuel to a predetermined level, at which point a float gently raises the inlet needle valve to a closed position. As the liquid fuel vaporizes and escapes from the carburetor float bowl, the float and inlet needle valve drop thereby allowing fresh liquid fuel to enter the float bowl through the float-actuated inlet needle valve under gravity draining from the fuel tank. Hence, hot soak and diurnal losses in a float bowl carburetor are also increased due to these vaporization-replenishment-vaporization cycles.
Third, as indicated above, float-bowl carburetors are more sensitive to fuel inlet pressure than diaphragm carburetors. Consequently, the fuel tank must have as low and constant an internal pressure as possible, yet still support a high enough threshold pressure to minimize fuel vapor loss to the atmosphere. Unfortunately, conventional combination rubber duck bill and umbrella valves, typically associated with diaphragm carburetor fuel systems, tend to suffer from hysteresis. Thus, such valves are not capable of repeatably holding a tank pressure close enough to a predetermined threshold pressure.
In conclusion, equipment manufacturers are in need of a wide range of reliable and comprehensive technological solutions to the problem of hot soak and diurnal evaporative emissions of volatile fuel from a fuel system—particularly those solutions that address various escape routes of vapor emissions and that are robust and affordable to consumers.